One of our most highly-rated novels when it came out in hardback last year, Sally Gardner’s The Weather Woman is a theatrical, thought-provoking and wildly exhilarating romp of a read.
Supported by brilliantly meticulous research into its setting (namely, London’s 1789 Frost Fair), it really is a marvel of historic fiction melded with Angela Carter-esque magic, feminist themes, exuberantly characterful style, and tremendous wit. If that wasn’t enough, The Weather Woman also offers love, romance and off-the-scale entertainment.
As for the story, The Weather Woman of the title is Neva, a young woman who was “born into the wrong time.” After losing her parents in an ice-related accident during the height of the Frost Fair, Neva is taken in by a maker of clocks and automata, in whose company she hones her extraordinary talent for predicting the weather.
Compelled to hide her skills and live a double life as a male dandy in order to present her skills to the world at large, Neva finds glorious (but complicated) love while battling the constraints imposed on women.
With the paperback recently published, now seems the perfect time for you to consider discussing The Weather Woman at your next book club. With that in mind, here are a few questions to spark your conversations. We promise you’re in for a marvellous treat!
1. Discuss the style of writing in relation to Neva’s way of thinking. For example, she’s described as having a “mind that belongs to a different world altogether”, and she “talks in colours when she can’t think of the right words for an emotion.”
2. Did Sally Gardner’s writing style put you in mind of any other writers?
3. Neva remarks she was “born into the wrong time, not necessarily the wrong sex” and Henri, the dashing French count, observes: “The world is run by men, and for a clever woman that must be completely frustrating. For an extraordinary woman? I have no idea what it must be like.” Do you think we yet live in an era that’s the “right time” for women? Could you draw any parallels between female experiences in the novel and those of the present-day?
4. Discuss the representation of gender fluidity in The Weather Woman. For example, alongside Neva adopting the identity of a male dandy in order to attend scientific lectures (a “second skin that allows her to go where no woman is wanted”), The Weather Woman also features a female barber who presents as male and lives with a common law wife.
5. Discuss duplicity in The Weather Woman. Consider it in relation to the theatrical elements of the novel — its show(wo)manship, and the early scenes set at the Frost Fair on the Thames, replete with “dancing bears, jugglers, puppet shows, exhibitions of wild beasts.”
6. Did The Weather Woman stir an emotional response? Did any scenes make you cry or laugh?
7. To what extent is The Weather Woman a love story? Would you describe it as a page-turner?
For more ideas, browse our book club recommendations, and explore reading group questions for a range of novels.
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